Dade Law Limits Naming Street Signs

Commission Will Vote To Change Rule

MIAMI - — This is a place where drug dealers and liars have had streets named after them.

But to name a street for the 106-year-old godmother of the Everglades, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the laws must change. On Tuesday, Metro-Dade commissioners took a first step toward doing just that.

"Something is not right with this picture," said Carole Cotton, a former schoolteacher and environmentalist who has tried for months to get a Kendall street named for Douglas. "Marjory Stoneman Douglas is a unique, independent thinker of what is right."

Until last year, practically anyone short of Fidel Castro could get their name on a street sign in Dade County. Some examples:

-- Developer-turned-convicted drug felon Leonel Martinez had a stretch of 132nd Avenue named after him.

-- Baseball bad boy Jose Canseco, fined for driving 120 miles an hour and convicted of carrying a loaded semi-automatic pistol, has a portion of Southwest 16th Street named after him.

-- Banker Abel Holtz, sentenced last year to jail and house arrest for misleading a grand jury, has part of Northeast Second Avenue in his honor.

Embarrassed about having a street named for Martinez, commissioners changed the law in January 1995. You had to be dead to get a street named in your honor in Dade. No exceptions.

Sheepishly they removed Martinez's name from the signs.

But the change turned out to be too much for Cotton. After four Brothers to the Rescue pilots were killed February 24, Cotton noticed that commissioners had changed a portion of Coral Way to Brothers to the Rescue Martyrs Boulevard.

If they could name a street for them, why not the woman whose classic book River of Grass first attracted attention to the dying Everglades.

"I'm sorry they lost their lives," Cotton said. "But what did they do for Dade County?''

Cotton initially got a cold reception from Dade County officials to the idea of naming Sunset Drive after the 106-year-old Douglas. The law was clear, she was told.

"This woman has made a significant contribution to South Florida," Cotton said.

So Cotton approached state legislators, who recently passed a measure to rename the street after Douglas. That still wasn't enough to make the change. Metro-Dade had to change its law.

Cotton got the attention of Commissioner Katy Sorenson. Sorenson said she'd try to change the law.

On Wednesday, commissioners voted 11-0 for Sorenson's proposal. They'll take a final vote after a June 4 public hearing.

The change will allow for a living person to have a street named after him or her. But there are some conditions: the legislature must officially designate a portion of the road in that person's honor. And the person must have made a significant contribution to the community.

Commissioner Maurice Ferre, who proposed the old law, is in favor of the amendment, said his aide Nestor Toledo.

"He has no problems with someone of that stature who has done so much for South Florida," Toledo said.

Cotton said that even though Douglas is blind and deaf, she is aware of the impending change.